94 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [AUGUST 
accumulating data which point to the great antiquity of this 
archipelago and to its complex geological history. 
Extinction 
The flora of today. strikingly illustrates the profound biological 
changes concomitant with the coming of foreigners? and the spread 
of their industries. Practically all of the arable lowlands have 
been converted into plantations, and are covered with sugar cane, 
pineapples, and other crops. The level uplands have become 
sheep and cattle ranches. Agriculture has wiped out practically 
all the native vegetation in all of these utilizable regions, and the 
indigenous flora is now largely confined to the mountains and the 
waste lands. 
Feral and semi-wild goats, sheep, swine, and cattle have been 
the most serious and persistent foes of the native flora. For over 
a century they have roamed almost unchecked through the forests, 
overrunning the mountainous districts, and in some instances 
whole islands. They have totally destroyed ) bly damaged 
untold quantities of indigenous vegetation. Many districts have 
been stripped of all save the weediest and least edible of plants. 
Some of the smaller islands (Niihau, Lanai, and Kahoolawe) 
that have long been overstocked with these herbivorous vandals 
have 1 depleted almost wholly of the original native flora. 
The destruction of the vegetative protective covering has ex- 
posed these regions to the full force of erosion by wind and 
_ water, and this has resulted in the removal of huge quantities 
of surface soil. 
It is difficult to conceive ‘the transformations wrought in the 
Hawaiian forests by man™ and his live stock, so extensive have 2 
aa been the devastations. Many herba 
: been totally exterminated. Some of the woody species that have 
become extinct within historic times, or are now on the verge of — 
. - 2 Forsigners, that is, others than native ‘Hawaiians; ‘pecially Americans, : 
